Purple finch (maybe) fledgling.
I’d been asleep. I was aware of light in the room. I looked at the bedside clock—something like 4:30 a.m. The longest day of the year.
Then I turned over and went back to sleep.
When I finally did rise, sun streamed through the blinds and crows were cawing out back. Adult crows, fledglings whining for food. I heard the voices of house finches, too—but no phoebes. They’ve fledged and split town. Which got me thinking: maybe the nuthatches—which nested quite a bit earlier than the phoebes—also successfully fledged a brood. I hope so, anyway.
Dragonfly.
Worked for a good while, then found a stopping point and had a nice bike ride. Not a lot of birds singing along my route—chipping sparrow, song sparrow, crows, yellow warblers—but what a nice, sweaty ride. Not very long after my return, Jack and I split for Beech Hill and a hike.
Which hike was kind of tiring, truth be told, on account of I’d just been riding hard and fast for an hour. (Hiking and cycling use different leg muscles.) But it was a hike full of sweet sun and shadow, through a woodland just about as lush as it possibly could be (a solstitial thing?), and the mosquitoes weren’t too awful bad. Most of the usual resident birds calling. In fact, my most noteworthy sighting was one of my first: spotted a nondescript brown bird sitting on a nearby branch watching us. As I snapped off a few photos, I saw that it was a fledgling of some kind. But what kind? Later, on inspecting the photos, I about decided it must’ve been a young purple finch. I could be wrong, however.
At the summit we discovered a Beech Nut open house going on. Stopped and chatted for a moment with some folks up there. Also saw a pair of tree swallows zipping over and around and off and away. They were one of only six species I actually saw at the hill today.
Coming back down through the lower woods, I heard another hermit thrush. Its voice seemed faint, so at first I thought it was farther away than it was. Turns out, though, as we circled around a curve in the trail, it was singing from a perch only about thirty feet from us. Trouble was, I couldn’t find the perch. Or the bird. This thrush’s voice is so ephemeral and sparkly that it’s really hard to get a fix on the sound. Then again, I’ve noticed in the past couple years I’m less able to judge vertical direction than I used to be. I might’ve been looking too high. Or low.
Jack and ferns.
It’s the second time I’ve been unable to locate a hermit thrush this year on the inside of that same curve. Probably the same bird.
Back home, out back, I heard the loud chattering of a pileated woodpecker from somewhere high in the oaks. Then I heard the subtle notes of a phoebe in the thick low foliage maybe a couple dozen yards away. Soon after, I heard the little plaintive begging whines of young birds. I imagined these sounds came from the little phoebe family that came into the world above my back window.
And tonight, more stars and frogs. A cool, murmuring breeze. Crickets. Fireflies.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5:15 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. Hermit thrush (voice)
2. Chestnut-sided warbler (voice)
3. Purple finch (juvenile)
4. Red-eyed vireo (voice)
5. Veery (voice)
6. American goldfinch (voice)
7. Ovenbird (voice)
8. Black-and-white warbler (voice)
9. Eastern towhee
10. Common yellowthroat (voice)
11. Gray catbird
12. Song sparrow
13. Herring gull (voice)
14. Savannah sparrow
15. Tree swallow
16. American robin (voice)
17. American crow (voice)
18. Eastern wood-pewee (voice)
Elsewhere
19. House finch
20. Herring gull
21. Chipping sparrow
22. Mourning dove
23. Yellow warbler
24. Pileated woodpecker
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, black-and-white warbler, chestnut-sided warbler, chipping sparrow, common yellowthroat, eastern towhee, eastern wood-pewee, gray catbird, hermit thrush, herring gull, house finch, mourning dove, ovenbird, pileated woodpecker, purple finch, red-eyed vireo, savannah sparrow, song sparrow, tree swallow, veery, yellow warbler
